A WSJ editorial today commiserates with Barack Obama for facing the amazing audacity of the Clinton smear machine. But only to a point:
The Illinois Senator is still a young man, but not so young as to have missed the 1990s. He nonetheless seems to be awakening slowly to what everyone else already knows about the Clintons, which is that they will say and do whatever they “gotta” say or do to win. Listen closely to Mr. Obama, and you can almost hear the echoes of Bob Dole at the end of the 1996 campaign asking, “Where’s the outrage?”
This has been the core of the conservative critique of the Clintons for years. So it is illuminating to hear the same critique coming from Mr. Obama and his supporters now that his candidacy poses a threat to the return of the Clinton dynasty. Even Democrats are now admitting the Clintons don’t tell the truth — at least until Mrs. Clinton wins the nomination.
Politics ain’t beanbag, they say, and all campaigns cherry pick the truth about the opposition to a degree. The Clintons, though, are past masters of simply making things up. And getting away with it.
